Searching the Past to Understand the Future

05/17/2012

The Calm Before the Summit

They're giving the city of Chicago over to the mob on Friday in preparation for giving it over to the landed gentry of the largely superfluous Cold Warmongering body known as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on the weekend. It's been strange to be in Chicago for these last few weeks.

Way back on May 2nd we got our first warning about what to expect when the rabid hordes of Occupy protesters descend on the city like so many patchouli-scented locusts. At the time I made jokes about the importance of holding hourly panic drills. I also planned on taking my lunch hours on May 18th and May 21st to (gasp) head out into the streets of Chicago with a camera and take pictures of the doin's-a-transpiring.

In the last two weeks I've witnessed the panic slowly getting ratcheted up from "pointless and laughable" to "extreme and genuinely worrisome." Last weekend I found out that Metra (the collective train lines that connect the suburbs beyond the reach of the L to the city) is putting in regulations for Saturday to Monday that skip merrily past "draconian" right into "completely batshit absurd." Then yesterday my company declared an all-company work from home day and said that the doors to the office will be locked and don't bother even trying to come in because OH MY GOD WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE.

Well, that last part was more subtext...

Anyway, I hope to have an opportunity to write more about this later. But I've drawn one conclusion. In America we now have two sides: the fascists who want to take away your freedom and the wild, unreasonable animals who want to burn everything to the ground. Because, y'know, that's way easier to believe than any sissified moderate option that actually requires listening to your opponent.

There's really no sense in wondering why we're so fucked up. This is America in 2012. Treasure every minute of it, people.